Hi there!

My partner and I just went through the application process for a marriage certificate and wanted to share our experience of doing it on our own, without a wedding agency.

For context, we are both non-EU citizens living in the EU with work visas. Also, this is our personal experience, not an official way to go through this process!

Below are the main things I'd emphasise about the process:

1- Start as early as 2-3 months before your desired date

This is already known around here, but getting a date is really that competitive. I wish we had realised that earlier than we did. We started preparing our documents and getting into this topic in late July, thinking it would be enough time to get a date in September and, of course, that was already very tight.

It is not impossible to find an available date for the same or next month from what you wish, but that is definitely more of a gamble and a game of chasing, so if you want to be sure and have the opportunity to choose, start early (I'd imagine that is especially the case if you want to get a date at the very popular municipalities like Copenhagen or cities near the German border).

2- Make an informed decision (use this tracking spreadsheet!)

Here is where it gets tricky: finding out which municipality has available dates is a pain (and probably the reason why people would hire an agency and avoid the headache).

It is, however, one of the things that can make or break your plans for a specific date and/or location. If you're applying on your own, the only way to avoid applying blindly to a municipality and having an unpleasant surprise is by contacting them.

Right_Quality_9396 user created an amazing spreadsheet some time ago, with several municipalities and their contact information. I used it as a starting point, adding more fields and updating contact data and availability as I contacted the municipalities. The availability gets outdated by the minute, as you'd imagine, so I encourage you to make a copy of the document and update it yourself as you receive new information. It would be lovely if the community here kept it alive and made the topic of municipality availability a bit more transparent for people applying in the future!

Here is the link to my municipality tracking spreadsheet (last update 18.08.2026): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTIQMaxVp7_l5I6iyo3nXYt-oHOni41pSNhlJrFA9yKE3TKVD42N8MulfrD66EnPw/pubhtml

A list of all existing municipalities can be seen here.

3- Make sure you understand what is being requested by the AFL

The stress and sometimes rush to go through this process can be the biggest pitfall when applying for the marriage certificate. It's very important to set aside some focused time to go through the AFL's website and really understand what is being asked of you, especially regarding documents and proof of relationship.

As much as you might feel an urgency to just send them EVERYTHING to be on the safe side, from my experience, that's not really what they want. Which brings me to the next and maybe more important point:

4- Be thorough with your documentation

It took a long time and a lot of visits to this page to make sure we prepared the documents the way the AFL wants. I spent a lot of time on Reddit reading about how other people prepared their documents and, as helpful as it was, I'd still say: the AFL guideline is your best reference. Try getting the pictures as close as possible to what they show on their website. Use this guide for passport pictures and this guide for ID pictures.

Read and even keep these pages open while you take the pictures. We sent pictures of all passport pages (including front and back covers and all empty pages) as well as additional angle pictures of the biometric page so that the holograms are visible.

It doesn't have to be perfect (if you look at the reference pictures on their website, they are also not perfect), but they have to conform to what they're asking: don't crop any corners, don't obstruct information, avoid glare on important information, avoid blur, don't make the pictures too dark or too bright, do not edit the pictures!

But, as helpful as it is, the AFL website is not perfect, and there are some things that are not mentioned in the guidelines. For instance, my partner and I have been together for 10 years, so I initially selected pictures from each year of our relationship, only to later find out that you're only supposed to present pictures from the last 3 years of the relationship! (make sure to screenshot the pictures on your phone or computer in a way that the dates are visible).

It's also not mentioned in the guidelines, but they will want you to present proof of correspondence for all the years you've been together, with dates visible. We didn't have chats from the first year (that was so long ago!), but we had emails, so we organised everything into a PDF: one page with 1 screenshot of chats per year of the relationship + screenshots of our email inbox with emails from one another. That was the only way we found to show we've been in touch since 2016, and they accepted it.

We used the same travel receipts (hotel and flight/train bookings) for both our applications; we organised them into a simple PDF.

5- Bonus tip: remember the topic of apostille after your wedding

If, like us, you'll also need to register your wedding in a different country, you'll likely need to apostille your marriage certificate after getting married. And, if you're also pressed for time, maybe it's not a bad idea to choose your municipality or plan your trip to Denmark to include dealing with this topic.

From what I understood, it is only possible to get your certificate apostilled in Copenhagen. There's no appointment needed, but you need to order your apostille online beforehand; more information can be found here.

They are open Monday to Friday 9.00-12.00, Tuesday and Thursday 13.30-15.30.

We will get married in Aarhus and are planning to make a stop in Copenhagen to get this sorted right away, so we don't have to figure out how to do it by post and can immediately use it to register our wedding in our country of residence. If you're not getting married too far from CPH, that might be worth considering too :)

Good luck with your applications; hopefully, knowing that another couple managed to successfully get through this process on their own and without having to reapply will give you confidence in your own application process!